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veins and very bitter taste. The name Native Hop is bad, 

 not only because it is no relation to the Hop, but because 

 the name is also given to a small tree whose fruits have a 

 fanciful resemblance to those of Hop. 



Clovertree is a tall shrub, with trifoliate, cloverlike 

 leaves and pale-yellow flowers in loose clusters. 



Native Indigo is a true Indigo. It has leaves with 

 numerous flat leaflets, long slender branches, and clusters 

 of pretty dark-pink flowers. 



In Tasmania we have a few Peaflowens whose leaves 

 are reduced to little or nothing. The commonest is a wiry 

 little Sphaerolobium, seldom more than a foot high, with 

 numerous small yellow flowers arranged singly along the 

 branches. It is found in grassy places. Another leafless 

 plant found on poor mudstone hills is Bossiaea riparia. 

 It is a little shrub, and to make up for the absence of 

 leaves the branches are flat and broad. Unfortunately, 

 these last two have no popular names. 



Plants are not passive objects responding indifferently 

 to their surroundings. They are endowed with life just 

 as well as animals. If they differ it is only in detail, not 

 in principle. Animals and plants are made separate king- 

 doms for our convenience, and not from any clear distinc- 

 tion. They are but one series of beings, differing greatly 

 when the extremes are considered, but absolutely con- 

 tinuous where they meet. 



Plants do not see nor hear, nor is there any reason to 

 think they feel in the sense that thev are conscious of a 

 disturbance. Nor are lower animals possessed of these 

 powers. But plants have the ordinary functions of living 

 beings, and also special senses of great acuteness. Because 

 we do not find in them the senses we possess, we do not at 

 first sight credit them with any. Yet plants are sensitive 

 to gravity, light, heat; and contact, according to their 

 kind, and that to a degree of extreme delicacy. 



Every plant has a constitution of its own, an individu- 

 ality. It is capable of responding to outside influences, 

 but only along certain restricted lines. It can only respond 

 as far as the peculiar composition of its substance will 

 permit. This is generally called inherited disposition. But 

 a being cannot inherit a history. It can only receive 

 substance, and were its substance the exact counterpart 

 of that of perfectly similar parents, and its surroundings 

 were exactly the same, then the young would be just a 

 repetition. But the factors are never the same therefore 

 we have infinity of variation. An ovule is not a new 



